Will post all “Clerk Plates” on county website and make available for all citizens

Erie County, NY - A long-held traditional perk of County Clerk’s has been the ability to dole out a limited number of “Clerk Plates” with such desirable prefixes as “EC or ER.”

County Clerk Chris Jacobs wants to end this practice and plans on listing all available plates on the county website with a simple request form. “Plates will then be awarded on a first come first serve basis,” stated Jacobs. “My goal here is to remove any perception of favoritism in awarding these plates.”

Prefixes other than “EC” and “ER” that the Clerk has available are “B, BF, BL, BU, CE, and E” and are the same cost as a typical license plate which is $28.75. Approximately 70 of these plates are currently available. The “Clerk Plates” can only be issued for passenger vehicles and are not obtainable for commercial vehicles, motorcycles or trailers.

ALBANY, NY - New York State Department of taxation and Finance has announced a new initiative that changes the way homeowners apply for the basic STAR Tax Exemption. The Tax Department as of August 26th, 2013 and confirmed by the department in a written statement, has mailed out 550,000 STAR registration letters to Homeowners in 17 Western Region Counties. These counties include; Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates. Including this most recent mailing, the total outreach is 2.6 million homeowners.

       Says proud of role Clerk’s office plays to support critical services while keeping down taxes

Erie County, NY – Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs reported today that his office accounted for 50% of the overall county surplus.  Jacobs’ is referring to the County Comptroller’s report released yesterday which shows an overall budget surplus of $4.27 Million, and  “roughly 50% of the county’s entire operating surplus,” came from the County Clerk  said the Erie County Comptroller in his budget close-out report.

“We were proud to report our over $2 million dollar surplus several months ago but the fact that we contributed such a large percentage to the County’s overall surplus is quite significant,” said Jacobs. The Clerk’s Office represents only 4% of the County’s work force but is responsible for one-half of the 2012 County’s surplus.